“I—I can’t say that I have, Your Majesty.” I say, wishing I’d never have to, but in the off chance she’s an ally to me I can’t risk insulting her.
“I think you’re really going to enjoy this then. And please, call me Kat.”
The first course isn’t the lamb though. They’ll save that for last. This is some sort of ravioli, filled in with what I believe is butternut squash topped with browned butter. Kat doesn’t even hesitate to pop one into her mouth, savoring the flavor and washing it down with a shot of Chardonnay.
To my surprise it’s good, and rich in flavor. Most full course meals I’ve had never allowed me time to even finish what was on my plate, but tonight I finish it all before the next course comes out, which is some sort of mushroom soup I’ve never had before, but again enjoy.
As we move onto a salad of kale greens, candied walnuts, and some other fruits I don’t know the names of, the silence is filled with chatter about our journey from Vakrov and what it was like growing up in my small, Limacoran village. Kat is put off to know I grew up human, but realizes it explains why this princess was lost for so long. It’s clear she disapproves of my father sheltering us from who we were. I suppose I understand it. Perhaps if he hadn’t I would have grown up with it already in my mind that I would rule a country one day. Then maybe it wouldn’t seem so daunting.
When the lamb finally comes out I am already well beyond full, but I am grateful I am forced to eat it anyway. Because it’s delicious. Topped with a rich glaze and paired with roasted potatoes, I eat it all.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Keenan smirk. My eyes fly to him, recoiling from the table. “What?” I demand, thinking I have something on my face. I dab at my mouth with a napkin.
Keenan laughs lightly. “Nothing. I just…you’ve barely eaten a thing in months. It’s good to see you’ve got that ridiculously huge appetite of yours back.” His cheeks pull up into another smirk and for a moment I forget that I hate him and smile back.
“It’s really good.” I say and the small group around me laughs, even the queen. How a small, silly moment like that can erase the burning hurt in my chest from earlier’s brief conversation on the balcony, I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel as painful. Like a wound scabbed over.
“I told you you’d like it.” Kat’s cool fingers curl around my wrist that sits on the table and she offers me a smile. Her fingers move to my white gloves where I have the note Grayson gave me tucked away as if she’s pressing me to read it.
When her hand releases me, and only when no one seems to be looking, I pull the note from the inside of the glove and read it under the table.
Join me for a drink after dinner. Come to the sunroom. Alone.
I glance up at Kat and her only response is a smile. I tuck the note back into its hiding place and give the queen a curt nod. This makes her smile widen and then she goes on to explain how the blood orange tart they serve for dessert became one of her favorites.
I glance at Bastian who seems put off by the fact that the queen appears to have no interest in discussing an alliance at dinner. It makes me smile though. I like seeing him on edge. It humanizes him a little.
Having read the note, now I am eager for dinner to end so that I can find out why the queen is requesting an audience with only me. It was a hidden request, which means she does not want Keenan or Bastian to know I’ve gone.
So I do something I do not want to do.
I let Keenan walk me back to my room once dinner comes to a close.
“You seemed to enjoy yourself tonight.” Keenan says, breaking our walk of silence. His eyes stay focused on his feet as if he’s avoiding looking at me.
“I suppose I did. A wonderful dinner with an interesting foreign queen, no politics. Just good, honest conversation. It was a nice change.”
“Politics are going to be a part of your life one way or another, Amara. Might as well get used to the idea now.”
“Are they though?” I reply, in challenge. This makes him meet my eyes at least. “I mean, Bastian stole me away from Limacore and is having me marry for a reason, isn’t he?” It’s the same reason Theon intends to marry me to his star pupil if he ever manages to get his hands on me. “I’m nothing more than a figurehead. A symbol. You can use me to rule my country without ever having to usurp my throne. Well, not in the public eye anyway.”
Keenan stops suddenly and the look he gives me next wounds me. It’s what I expect I look like every time I’m near him. Hurt, offended. Sad. “Do you really think I would do that to you?”
“You helped your king kidnap me, you let him torture me, and then you plan to force me to marry you against my will. You using me to take over Llìria is not much of a stretch, Keenan.”
The look of hurt broadens and he shakes his head. “I would never do that to you. I think you know that.”
“I really don’t.” I snap. When I look up I realize we’re standing outside my chamber door.
Keenan steps forward and ceases my hand, letting his temper get the better of him as he often does when it comes to me. “Why do you do that? Why do you punish yourself every time we have a genuine moment of joy together?”
I peer down at his hand curled around mine and I rip it from his grasp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I sneer.
“Yes, you do.”
“Punish myself? How am I punishing myself?” I demand, my voice rising with my growing anger.
“Because you know that you’ll spend the rest of the night going over this conversation in your head a million times, letting it eat away at you, but I won’t. As soon as I leave you I’ll forget all about it. You’re only hurting yourself. And you do it every time you think you might be forgetting all the bad, even if it’s just for a moment.”
“I will never forget what you did to me, Keenan Volterra. I was willing to forgive you once and you responded by stabbing me in the back! I will never make that mistake again. And if you think that I don’t know that this is going to eat away at you as much as me than you have underestimated me yet again.” I straighten my spine, breathing heavily. “Goodnight, Keenan.”
Once inside the confines of my room I press my back to the door, feeling his presence lingering on the other side of it. Even if he hears it I don’t care. The tears fall and a few sobs slip. I press a hand to my chest, fighting hard to gain back my equilibrium. The queen is expecting me. I don’t have time to be hurt right now.
I wash my face in the bathroom and compose myself before I meet the queen.
I have no idea where the sunroom is, but a couple of servant girls are more than happy to show me the way.
It’s a beautiful room with large windows that stretch almost from floor to ceiling. It’s got a couple of seating areas and a table full of crystal decanters all shapes and sizes, all nearly full. In the back at the center there are two glass doors that push open, leading out onto a terrace.
Beyond the terrace you can see the capital city. It’s lit up like a starry night and just as quiet. I’ve never been so close to a city that size and heard so much silence.
“It’s an incredible view, isn’t it?”
I spin at the sound of the queen’s voice. She’s no longer in her dinner gown. Instead she’s in something much more comfortable. Stretchy black pants, boots, and a simple black top. It makes her a little less intimidating.
“It’s beautiful. Your whole country, from what I’ve seen, is beautiful.”
“Thank you. I hope that I get to show it to you one day.” She goes over and pours two glasses of whatever’s in the large, crystal decanter. She offers one to me and adds, “When you’re queen.” I take the glass from her and her eyes go to my bare hand. “No ring?”
My eyes fall on my ring finger and I frown. I’d never even considered the fact that Keenan hadn’t given me a ring to go with our impending marriage. “Ah, I—”
“Don’t want to marry that pompous, little prick calling himself prince?” she offers with a grin. I
almost laugh at her bluntness. Instead I just smile. “Did I say something amusing?”
“No. You just remind me of someone.”
She takes her glass into her hand and sits on the cushioned chair beside the table. “Who?”
I slip to the seat across from her and smile as I think of her. “That pompous prick’s sister, Kara. She’s my best friend.”
“Ah, the one locked away in your palace as of right now.”
I nod. “She’s always spoken her mind, consequences be damned. I miss her.” My heart aches with just how much.
“Funny. You remind me a lot of my best friend. I guess it’s why I like you so much. She was kind and passionate about the things she believed in. What’s more, she was honest. Not just with what she said, but in her eyes. She had honest eyes.”
“Had?” I ask, missing nothing.
“She died many years ago. And, like her, you carry your emotion in your eyes.” She pauses. “You have no desire to be queen.”
Her insight doesn’t surprise me. She’s wise beyond her years. I can see it in the way she moves, the way she speaks. The only thing I can’t see is whether she is friend or foe. “No.” I confess. “I grew up a simple, village girl hoping that her best friend’s brother would finally realize that he was in love with me. That’s all. I couldn’t—or can’t wrap my head around anyone wanting me to be their queen. Besides, what Bastian seems to be overlooking is it isn’t up to me. I have two brothers the crown could go to.”
“But you do understand how the Monarch Trials work, don’t you?”
“Haven said that even if Aaren is technically older we’re recognized as triplets so the three of us would compete and whoever wins, wins the crown.”
“Yes, and you have nether magic, Amara. You would win. You will be queen and you need to be. You are the nether user. It’s you who’s being persecuted, far more than the ether users or the Borderlines. You need to lead the Serpentarians. They’ll follow you.”
“Now you sound like Theon.” And any hope that she might be my savior flies out the window.
“Theon wants to use you. Bastian wants to control you. I want to help you realize your potential. That’s all.”
“I don’t understand. Zakaria doesn’t support Borderlines or Serpentarians. So, other than you being friends with my mother, why would you help me?”
Kat sits up in her chair, straightening her spine, looking suddenly regal. “I’m not sure the lies Bastian Beaugrand has told you, but let me straighten it out for you. The Serpentarians with nether magic have done some horrific things. Dark magic always does when put into the wrong hands so while we do not tolerate that kind of behavior in my country we do not discriminate. There are Borderlines in my country and as long as they possess earth magic they stay. I am interested in one thing and one thing only. That is getting back to our roots, reinstating the old laws, which was a time, I might add, where House Serpentarius flourished.”
“The old laws?” I snap, consequences be damned. “You mean the ones where you execute anyone who isn’t from your House, or give birth to babies outside your House?”
“Rumors, sweetheart.” She says it so lazily, and a more naïve girl would believe her. “Yes, any illegal Zodiacs not native to Zakaria get deported, but we do not execute people for it.”
“Where do those people go?”
“To countries where the ruling monarch reflects whatever element they possess.”
“And babies born outside your element?”
“My people are careful to avoid that, but it happens.”
“The entire point of the old laws is to keep the blood pure, to keep the different types of magic from mixing and being tainted, but it isn’t foolproof. It can’t be.”
“Well you’re right about that. But if they’re born in Zakaria they are Zakarian. The point of the old laws is to keep our magic pure you’re right. But it’s also so there is no more persecution and it gives everyone a place to be with their own kind if they so choose.” Kat heaves a sigh. “But I didn’t ask you to come here so we can discuss politics.”
“No, I suspect not.”
“I have a proposition for you, Amara.”
“Oh?”
Kat smirks at my bold attitude. “You can say no. Regardless of your answer there is a transit all prepped and waiting to take you anywhere you’d like to go. You’ll vanish and Bastian will never get his hands on you again.”
My heart pounds in my chest and I suddenly feel very nauseous. I curl my fingers around the arms of my chair to keep myself rooted to my seat. I want to sprint to that transit and speed off in it myself. Instead I ask in a small voice, “What’s the proposition?”
—CHAPTER TWENTY—
AARIC
RAID
I’ve spent days trying to figure out what Keenan is doing in Vakrov and every time I try my brain hurts a little bit more.
But none of what I’m feeling can be half as bad as how Roman is feeling.
And he’s not been shy about it.
We’re sitting in the makeshift tavern in the Serpentarian camp drinking what must be our fourth or fifth drink when he finally asks the question we’ve all been thinking, but not saying aloud.
“He betrayed us.”
“We don’t know that, Roman.” I shake my head, pushing away any thoughts of my best friend betraying us. He never would. I am as sure of that as I am that the sky is blue. So why do I feel doubt creeping in like a poison?
“There’s no other explanation, Aaric. He betrayed us. He was working with the Vakrovian king, somehow, without us knowing it and he helped that monster kidnap her. Now he’s forcing her to marry him. He did all of that. How can you still doubt what’s right in front of you?”
“Because he’s my best friend!” I shout and the other people in the tavern all look our way. I run an angry hand through my hair and drop my voice low when I speak next. “He’s my best friend, Roman. I—I can’t…I don’t know why he would do this. I truly don’t, but I have to believe he’s got a reason for doing what he’s doing.”
“And Amara? What of her? You said Tavin told you she wasn’t pleased with this engagement. This isn’t her choice, Aaric.”
“You just don’t want it to be her choice because you don’t want her marrying someone else.” It’s a low blow, something Amara would chide me for if she were here.
“This isn’t about me and you know it. The whole entire time she was in Limacore she was wary of that boy. Scared of him, even. She told me once that he hurt her, something unforgivable. If she’s marrying him it isn’t because she’s in love. It’s because she’s being forced to.”
The thought makes me physically ill.
“What if we don’t get her out of there before the wedding?” He whispers the question, like he’s afraid if he says it too loud the universe might hear, and make it true.
But the answer, for me, is simple. “If Keenan has done anything to hurt my sister, Roman, I’ll kill him myself.” Roman just nods. And then vomits on the floor. “Alright, buddy. Let’s get you into bed.”
Tavin and Revilie, grateful to me for saving their little girl, cleared out a whole hovel with beds for me and our group to sleep in. Inside everyone, but Niykee is asleep. I help Roman onto his cot and cover him in blankets before joining Niykee where she’s sitting at the table there, fiddling with the amulet and the map.
“Anything?”
“It’s like it’s vanished. Whoever got to that Nexus before us is doing well to hide it from us. The only way we’re gonna find it is if we figure out who took it and where he, or she is going with it.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Felix asks from the darkness. I peer over to see him lying awake on his cot, fingers crisscrossed under his head.
“Malia said that a Piscean holds the wards up around this place.” I reply. “Which means there’s a Piscean here somewhere. Maybe whoever it is can help us either fix this amulet or figure out who it is that took the Nexus to begin wi
th.”
“It’s a start.” Niykee says. Her eyes move to Roman fast asleep on his cot. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s not taking this well.” I remember when that was me. In the days after Haven went off with her prince, taking my sister with her, I was a mess too. Drinking, saying and doing inappropriate things in the throes of intoxication. Neither of us had done more than flirt and imply, but his heart breaks for Amara and mine breaks for Haven still. Some of us still have doubts about the heartbroken prince, whether we can trust him or not, but for me that fear is gone, replaced by many others.
“Do you really think Keenan betrayed us, Aaric?” Niykee doesn’t sound convinced. Neither am I, but Roman made some good points and even I am starting to question our friend’s loyalty.
“I can’t think of a reason why he would, but honestly? He was gone for a whole year training to be a guard. Who knows where he really was and who he was with?” And Roman isn’t wrong. Amara was angry with Keenan. I’m not sure she was afraid of him like he claims, but there was definitely something hanging between them that neither had any desire to confront.
Niykee spares Roman another glance. “Well I don’t think we should stay here much longer. We either find this Nexus or we find a way to get the girls back without it. I’m done procrastinating.”
“Me too.”
In the morning Bay and I go to the south side of the camp where Malia’s hovel is. I’m not sure if she trusts me enough to give me the name of her Piscean, but she trusted me enough to let my friends come here. I can only hope she trusts me enough to help me with this. Her willingness to trust me will have to be evidence enough that I can trust her.
Bay and I find her eating breakfast with Tavin and his family. As soon as we approach Willow leaps to her feet and rushes over to me.
“Hey Aaric, do you wanna eat breakfast with me?” She bounces back and forth on her heels, unable to stand still.
I can’t help, but smile. “I actually already ate, kiddo, but come lunchtime I am all yours, okay?”
“Okay!” she exclaims, flitting back over to her parents at the table.
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